Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming

The central idea in Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction is simple: Unchecked, global warming threatens to destroy one of every two animals, birds, plants, reptiles, forests, fish and other creatures alive today on the earth. This looming ecological collapse will only be arrested if we can articulate and embrace what the natural world means to each of us

Overview

The central idea in Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction is simple: Unchecked, global warming threatens to destroy one of every two animals, birds, plants, reptiles, forests, fish and other creatures alive today on the earth. This looming ecological collapse will only be arrested if we can articulate and embrace what the natural world means to each of us, and then fight a series of hard political battles to preserve creation. On a subject about which it is easy to feel despair, Goodstein offers a realistic, ambitious, and hopeful political solution to avoid a century of mass extinction, a vision grounded in a moral view that embraces the interconnection of all life forms on the planet.

Emerging from his work as both an economist and a leader in the clean energy movement, this passionate book sets a new frame for helping Americans understand global warming as the challenge of our generation.

Weaving personal narrative with scientific facts, Goodstein begins with an overview of the current global warming crisis. In Chapters 2 and 3 (“Wealth” and “Knowledge”) he explores the question of whether the scale of mass extinction we are beginning to witness in the 21st century has more ominous implications for human welfare than it did in the 20th century. By destroying so much of creation,will we destroy the foundation of our own material prosperity? By tearing out so many pages in the book of life, are we depriving future generations of a vast store of knowledge? In “Spirit,” he stresses the need to re-spiritualize the way we talk about the natural world. Without an effective moral language that reflects our deeply felt love of nature and its diversity, effective political action is impossible.

“Politics” argues that if we are to hold global heating to the manageable, low end, Americans must stabilize emissions of global warming pollutants and begin to invest tens of billions of dollars every year in clean-energy technology solutions for the future. Stabilizing the climate requires strong leadership from the federal government —we must elect clean-energy leaders into the Senate, the House, and the Oval Office in the next few years. How to do this, by becoming involved in electoral politics, is the subject of the final chapter,“Solutions.”

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Goodstein provides a good nonscientific account of the global climate change problem that is an informative read for nonscience audiences at all levels." —Choice

"Fighting for Love is a passionate assertion of the power of the interconnection of the natural world. Blending science, economics and personal reflections--he urges us to consider our very love of the natural world as a key weapon in our fight to save it.But the book is more than lofty notions about love and the linking of things. Goodstein's practical side shines throughout, too, especially in his exhortation that we must stabilize emissions and invest tens of billions in clean-energy technologies sooner than later. It's too late to avoid "lower end" warming, he writes, so the cause now is to avoid catastrophic warming. Indeed, he believes avoiding this is the key challenge for those living at this point in history.Goodstein's optimism is not as divorced from reality; he understands that victory will require political leadership, global catch-up, governmental structures and nonstop citizen involvement in the political process.What's most refreshing about Fighting for Love is the fact that the author has responded to his own call for action and is now serving as project director for Focus the Nation, an educational initiative with the goal of holding a "nationwide discussion" on January 31, 2008 about global warming solutions. Goodstein has been traveling the country, coordinating colleges and high schools, generally getting people geared up for a fight to save the future." —Sacramento Weekly

"The author offers a realistic, ambitious, and hopeful political solution to avoid a century of mass extinction, a vision grounded in a moral view that embraces the interconnection of all life forms on the planet." —Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment

“Fighting for Love radiates with Eban Goodstein's genuine awe at the exquisite interconnectedness of our natural world. It focuses our attention on our spiritual connections with all forms of life. And it encourages us to engage in the rough and tumble realities of American politics. This book moves Goodstein from being a pied-piper of the climate movement to one of its prophets.”—Ross Gelbspan, author, The Heat Is On and Boiling Point

What People are Saying About This

David Orr

“The author is an economist but the message is directed, first, to the heart. Eban Goodstein has the sequence right in this powerful and timely book: we won't save what we do not love and we are not likely to love unless we first experience the wonder of nature. And the time to act is now.”

Bill McKibben

“Eban Goodstein is a great hero in the fight against global warming, hard at work years before it was popular. This bookpacked with anecdote, statistic, and most of all insightmakes clear why his work has been so consistently effective in reaching both the heart and the mind of a broad swath of the American public.”

Meet the Author

EBAN GOODSTEIN is Professor of Economics, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon and author of The Trade-Off Myth: Fact and Fiction About Jobs and the Environment (1999) and Economics and the Environment, now in its fifth edition. He is the Project Director of Focus the Nation, a major educational initiative that coordinates teams of faculty, students, and staff at over a thousand colleges, universities, and high schools in the United States, to engage in a nationwide discussion on “Global Warming Solutions for America.”